Costs and Motivations
by Lisa Telramor
Summary: When dangers start coming too close to his loved ones, Natsume leaves town and heads to Tokyo. A chance meeting leads him to a wish shop. Or is it hitsuzen?


There was still a twinge of guilt when Natsume thought about how he had vanished. Touko-san and Shigeru-san would be looking for him. Taki and Tanuma would be trying to contact the ayakashi around the town. The ayakashi…. Well, they would be worried when they realized something was out of the ordinary, but time passed differently for them. Natsume would be another Reiko in their minds, there one day, gone the next. It was safer this way though. Cutting ties would mean they would suffer only at the severing of ties, not the slow agony Matoba or some of the stronger ayakashi Natsume had crossed had promised.

He had no illusion that he could run forever, but hopefully things would be resolved by the time their searches caught up to him. Nyanko-sensei would likely find him first but he had enough of a head start to throw off the trail.

Natsume wiped sweat from his face, the summer sun too strong to be standing in the streets like this with the light reflecting off the concrete and making the air waver. He was in Tokyo. He had not been to Tokyo in a long time, not since one of the relatives he was staying with as a child. It didn't seem to have changed much, still too busy and bustling for his taste. The ayakashi here had not changed much either. He could see the dangerous ones, the ones that preyed off mass anxieties and stress and private fears coiling around their chosen targets among the crowds. There were other spirits here too, new spirits of technology living among old gods and ayakashi tied to the land. He wouldn't have noticed them as a child. He had always been better at seeing the ones intent on eating him than the ayakashi that did no harm.

A police officer gave him a second glance and Natsume knew he had lingered too long. He probably looked like he should be in school or wearing a job uniform. Since he hadn't bathed in three days, he probably looked disreputable enough to merit that second glance.

He turned down the first street he came to and kept walking. Schools were letting out now. Students without club activities started trickling into the crowd and others, probably rushing to reach their part time jobs, moved faster, weaving through the crowd. Natsume thought of his school uniform, hung up in his closet back at the Fujiwara home. In a little more than half a year he would have been graduating. He turned, taking a street that led toward residential areas. There were still students on the road, but it left the schools and his feelings of regret behind.

Ahead was a boy about his age carrying groceries and talking to the old lady at his side. The street corner had a convenience store, then an office building, then an apartment building. After the apartments were larger residential plots. From the corner of his eye, Natsume saw a grassy plot of land between two taller buildings as the old woman and teenager turned down a street, but when he glanced again, it wasn't a grassy plot of land at all, but a mismatched-style home with a walled gate between the buildings. The hair rose on the back of his neck as something inside him felt drawn to and repulsed by the building that looked like the last hundred or so years hadn't touched it. Ahead, the old woman stumbled and the teenager set down his groceries to give her a hand.

Instead, the old woman grabbed the teen's wrist in a firm grip and wrenched him to her level.

Natsume moved forward before he could even think about it as the old woman's face warped and twisted to reveal fangs and pupil-less eyes. The teenager caught by her grip flinched back and something inside of Natsume shuddered, because _the boy could see._ The groceries scattered as the boy tried to free his wrist, eyes flicking to the strange older building.

"—don't have _time_ to deal with this," the teen was growling as Natsume got closer. His free hand flailed as he tried to wrench free. "Find someone else to try and eat for goodness sake!" His eyes widened behind his wire rimmed glasses as Natsume got closer, and he flailed harder if that was possible. "I'm just, ah, exercising, yes, right!"

_Covering up_, Natsume thought. _Like I try to do_. Not for the first time he wondered what people who didn't see spirits saw. When Natsume fought ayakashi and was thrown back, did it look like he was hit by a gust of wind? When he was pinned or held up, slowly being choked, did it look like he was hovering in mid air? Did this teenager cover up like Natsume did, by being quiet and isolating himself or did he make such a big presence that anything strange was just another part of his oddities?

The ayakashi holding the teenager's arm turned, finally sensing Natsume. Her eyes narrowed and her teeth were bared. "Two meals together," she said. "What a fortunate day."

The teen in her grasp flailed hard but her grip was solid. Natsume didn't look at him. He met the ayakashi's eyes and pulled on the spiritual energy he was only starting to be able to use at will and said, "Let him go."

The eyes narrowed even further until they were malicious slits and the second hand shot out toward Natsume's throat.

"Watch out!" the teenager yelped.

Natsume dodged right, putting himself closer to the other teen. He put what energy he could into his fist and hit the old lady ayakashi in the chin. She shrieked and recoiled, letting go of her captive. The teenager grabbed Natsume's wrist and ran for the strange building, leaving the groceries where they were.

"The shop can't protect you forever!" the ayakashi yelled after them. She didn't try to follow, though, and the moment the teenager touched the wall around the building, her presence vanished altogether.

"…is she gone?" Natsume asked finally. He couldn't see or feel her and the groceries were still sitting in the middle of the road, slowly getting baked by the summer sun.

The teenager holding Natsume's wrist let go to flail. "Are you crazy?! That thing could have eaten you too!"

Natsume blinked. "I'm sorry…?"

The flailing stopped abruptly. "Ah, but thank you. I was so close to the shop too." He sighed and stared at the mess of his groceries. "Those bottles had better not be broken…."

"They looked whole," Natsume offered. "Do you need help with them?"

He got a considering look in return before the teenager nodded. "That would be nice. Thank you. And, er, thanks for the save. Though you shouldn't just go in like that."

"What was I supposed to do, watch you get eaten?" Natsume asked.

The teenager shook his head. "Um. You are human right?" The question was stilted and uncomfortable and it resonated.

"Yes." How many many times had he been fooled? "Yes I am."

"Oh. Good."

They knelt to gather the groceries—there were a lot of groceries, more than one person should need, and the bottles in question were two tall bottles of sake.

"Why were you trying to get to the building?" Natsume asked as he picked up a bag of vegetables, a bit bruised but no worse for it.

The teenager stilled next to him. "You can see it?"

"Yes." Natsume tilted his head. "Can most people not?"

"Usually only people that need it can see it."

"Oh." There were places like that in the spirit world where conditions had to be met to access them. A building that was only visible to those who needed it wasn't that much of a stretch. "It has barriers?"

"Strong ones." The teen's hands fumbled with the sake bottles. "I'm Watanuki Kimihiro," he said abruptly. "You should come meet my employer."

"Natsume Takashi," Natsume said. "Your employer?"

"Ichihara Yuuko. She runs the shop."

"Shop?"

Watanuki gestured to the building behind him. "The shop grants wishes."

"At what price?" Natsume asked, feeling the tug from the building again.

Watanuki smiled without any humor. "Exactly." He gestured toward the shop. "You have a wish don't you?"

Did he? Natsume frowned. He had many wishes, some of them synonymous with his regrets. The shop tugged on his senses again and he shook his head. Yes, he had wishes. And one great wish among all his smaller ones he supposed. "Do you feel the wishes granted are worth the cost?" he asked slowly.

"That depends on the person," Watanuki said, eyes distant. "But wishes often don't turn out how you expect."

They wouldn't would they? Nothing was straightforward. Nothing was simple. But it gave a chance Natsume wasn't sure he could get on his own. "I'll meet your employer," he said.

Watanuki nodded. He looked worried. Natsume tried not to think too hard about that. As they passed through the gate, the hot summer sun became marginally more bearable. Natsume could feel the tingle of moving between two realms. The shop didn't quite exist in the reality he just left.

"You're back!" two girls greeted as Watanuki opened the door. "What's for dinner? What's for dinner?"

"_Hiyashi chuka_ with_ edamame_," Watanuki said absently. He patted the girls on the head. "Tell Yuuko we have a customer."

"A customer! A customer!" The girls sped off.

Natsume stayed in the entryway a bit intimidated by their energy. Watanuki sent him a smile over his shoulder.

"Please come in. Maru and Moro are mostly harmless."

"Mostly?" Natsume muttered, but he slid his shoes off. The room he was led to was a strange mix of traditional and Western, painted fans and screens coexisting with Western tables and chairs, Chinese style furnishings, and an expensive looking couch where a woman lounged in a kimono. Natsume looked away before his eyes lingered impolitely. That kimono was not being worn how it was supposed to be worn.

"So. You have a wish," the woman on the couch—who could only be Yuuko, the shop owner—said with amusement.

"I suppose I do," Natsume said, looking somewhere over her shoulder. He was used to Hinoe draping herself over all sorts of things, but she at least wore her kimono properly.

"Ha," Watanuki said, appearing in the doorway with a tray of chilled summer tea and small dishes of _anmitsu_. The fruit and jelly cubes were colorful and looked refreshingly cool. Natsume tried not to eye the tray too hopefully. He had been outside in the hot sun longer than he should have been. "See, I'm not the only one who thinks you sit inappropriately," Watanuki scolded.

It seemed a little odd that he would scold his employer, but she didn't seem to mind. In fact she sat up grinning. "Is that _anmitsu_? With green tea jelly?"

"And cream and strawberry," Watanuki said putting the tray on the Western-style table. He pointed at Yuuko. "I'm not getting you alcohol. Drink the tea and like it!"

"Chilled sake with dinner," Yuuko said in a way that felt a bit like an order and a bit like a bargain.

"No more than one bottle."

"Two."

"One and a half."

Watanuki snorted. "Lush."

Yuuko grinned. "Thank you Watanuki."

"You're not getting more than that," he sniffed. Then he looked embarrassed as if he only just remembered that Natsume was watching. "Um…"

"Ignore him, "Yuuko said moving toward the table. "He just likes to complain."

"Hey!"

Natsume smiled. It reminded him of arguing with Nyanko-sensei. He ignored the pang of loneliness the thought brought with it. "Thank you for the hospitality," he said to both Watanuki and Yuuko. He joined Yuuko at the table and Watanuki sprang into action serving up the tea and snack before taking a seat near Yuuko's side.

"It has been a long time since I've seen someone of your bloodline," Yuuko said sipping at the chilled tea—barley tea, Natsume thought as he took a sip of his own. "Almost fifty years in fact."

"So you knew Reiko-san too?" He set his cup down. It seemed like everyone in the spirit realm had met Reiko at least once some days. "Did she cause trouble for you as well?" he asked already feeling resigned to hear how Reiko had whirl-winded into yet another person's life.

"Trouble?" Yuuko's lips twitched in a smile. "No. But she was a wonderful drinking buddy a few times." She grinned. "And she could swing a mean baseball bat."

Natsume winced. "I don't suppose she had a wish as well?"

"A wish?" Yuuko's voice went soft with memory, her eyes staring back at something in the past. Natsume saw that look a lot when people thought about Reiko. He sometimes wondered if people got the same look when they thought about him. "No. Her wishes were things I would not have been able to grant for her even if she were the type who would have sought an outside way of achieving them." Her eyes came back to the present and pinned Natsume in his seat. "But then you are not Reiko, as much as you take after her, Natsume Takashi."

"No," Natsume said softly. "I'm not much like my grandmother at all." He filled the silence with a bite of _anmitsu_ feeling the cool, sweet gel dissolve on his tongue. There were two sets of eyes on him and he couldn't, or maybe didn't want to, read either expression.

"You aren't without similarities," Yuuko said finally. It sounded a bit like a peace offering or an apology for overstepping a line neither was acknowledging existing. "But you have a wish, and if you are able to pay the cost I will grant it."

"If I found this shop a few years earlier," Natsume said slowly, "I probably would have wished you would take away my ability to see ayakashi." From the corner of his eye he saw Watanuki flinch. Did he also wish sometimes that he didn't have the power to see more than other people? "But I wouldn't wish for that now." He smiled ruefully. "I have as many friends among spirits as I have among humans these days. A few years ago I wouldn't have thought I'd be able to make connections in either realm." The smile left his face. "But that's caused problems. Humans aren't supposed to be friends with spirits and humans. They're not supposed to straddle the line. Reiko gave up on humans and made ayakashi friends. The exorcists condemn any and ayakashi as threats to humans. I'm not supposed to have both."

Yuuko said nothing, her face blanks and calm. Watanuki looked troubled though, his eyes flicking to Yuuko to Natsume and back again. If he saw spirits as clearly as Natsume did, he probably knew the feeling of being torn between two worlds willingly or not.

"Even then I might have been okay if I minded my business. But I didn't. I meddled in the lives of ayakashi and humans affected by ayakashi alike. I made friends with exorcists and land gods alike. And they took notice. The exorcists wanted me on their side to seal away the dangerous spirits. The ayakashi wanted to eat me or for me to solve their problems when there was no one else to turn to." Natsume's voice got softer. The _anmitsu _in his bowl swirled as he spun the spoon through it. "I lived with so many families growing up and brought trouble to all of them. I wanted this one to be the one that worked out. I was happy there and as I started to learn more about Reiko I felt less alone. But Reiko left some dangerous legacies." He met Yuuko's eyes. "There is an exorcist clan threatening the family I am living with and the lives of the ayakashi who live near the town I live in. I'm not strong enough to fight them and I'm not strong enough to protect those I care about. In the eyes of the exorcists, I am both a danger and a tool, and so long as I have the knowledge Reiko left me, I am more of the former than the latter. They plan on using the people I care about as leverage to turn me into the weapon they want. And there are several strong ayakashi who would just as happily eat me to gain my powers and get rid of a human meddler."

"And that would be why you are on the run," Yuuko said. Her eyes picked out every sign of his desperation from the unwashed hair to the clothes he hadn't changed in two days and the backpack he wouldn't set aside even now. "Your wish?"

"If I thought it would help, I'd erase the memories of everyone who ever met me, but that would only mean that eventually the situation would repeat itself in the future with different people or spirits." He felt hollow at the thought of being forgotten and losing all the friends he'd made. Reiko must have felt similar from how she collected ayakashi's names. She'd held tangible proof that the bonds couldn't be broken. Natsume would never ask for something so great or permanent. "I would wish to have never existed, but then that would erase all the good I've done as well as the bad." He couldn't wish that or so many of his friends, both ayakashi and human, likely would be suffering or dead. "So my wish would have to be for a way to reach peace between the ayakashi and the exorcists without any more deaths, pain, or enslavement." He couldn't run forever. He could maybe stop Matoba but that wouldn't eliminate the problem. He couldn't protect those he cared about if it meant someone else being hurt. This was one of the only ways he could think to word it to convey that.

"You wish for something near impossible," Yuuko said neutrally. "Peace on the whole will not account for the actions of individuals."

"I understand that," Natsume said. "There will always be humans that will want to abuse the power they have and ayakashi who will be twisted by pain or anger or spite to hurt humans. But there should be more options than killing or trapping each other. Sometimes it is a misunderstanding. Sometimes things can be fixed without blood."

Yuuko nodded. She sipped her tea. "The price is high."

"I wouldn't expect anything else."

The cup clinked to the table and Watanuki, who had been watching Yuuko's expression with growing concern, flinched. "As it is your personal concept of peace, it will be up to you to carry it out. One wrong decision and you will be ripped apart by the consequences and your peace with it." Natsume shivered and nodded. "But because you cannot choose sides and must be impartial, you will lose the ties you cherish most." Natsume paled. "You cannot favor friends over foes. This is part of your payment. Finally…" Her eyes drifted to Natsume's backpack. "Your grandmother's legacy will cover the last of the price."

Natsume felt like he would faint, but at that he sat up straighter. "I can't."

"Can't?" Yuuko said softly.

"The book… I can't give it to anyone. Not because it was Reiko's but because it holds the lives of ayakashi in it and they trust me not to lose or harm them. I can't betray that trust." Natsume gripped his spoon tight. "The cost is too high to pay."

"I see." Yuuko set aside her empty bowl of _anmistu._ "Then I will be unable to grant your wish. Are you okay with this?"

"I…" Was he? He would still be running, still trying to keep Matoba's attention from the knife he held over the people Natsume cared about. Was losing every tie he cared for and the trust of ayakashi worth it for peace? _No_, his mind said immediately. Nothing was worth going back to that dark place from before he moved in with the Fujiwara family. He felt ashamed at the selfishness of the thought. But then running away was selfish and his wish for peace was selfish too in its own way. "I can't," he said again. "I'll have to keep trying on my own," he said with a mirthless smile.

Yuuko smiled. "You are not so unlike Reiko after all, Natsume Takashi," she said. "I hope you can find the path to your wishes without losing what you care for most."

"You're not granting his wish?" Watanuki blurted, head whipping between the two of them.

Yuuko's smile widened. "No. Unless he has a smaller wish that I can grant?"

Natsume smiled back and it was a little wobbly and not as warm as he would have hoped. "I don't suppose I could get a bath and a bed for the night?"

"That's simple enough," Yuuko said. "In payment you can help Watanuki with his chores tonight."

Natsume bowed his head at her. "Thank you."

Yuuko grinned. "Now, since business is taken care of, tell me about your adventures! I have stories to share of Reiko in return."

Natsume blinked at the change, but Watanuki was already rolling his eyes. "You can't be professional for more than ten minutes at a time, can you?"

"Shush. And bring some sake to share with our guest. A friend's descendant deserves a welcome!"

"You're not getting anything to drink until dinner!"

"I'm underage!" Natsume added.

Yuuko laughed.

And if Nyanko-sensei was waiting in Yuuko's shop for him in the morning, Natsume wouldn't admit that he was more relieved than upset.

* * *

_AN: So this kind of blindsided me. It seemed perfect for a crossover though since they're two teens who can see spirits others can't. ^_^ This fic has an imagined future for Natsume Yuujinchou where Natsume is being threatened by Matoba on one hand, has attracted the negative attention of a powerful ayakashi on the other, and can't see a way out without the people he cares about being hurt so he runs away in hopes of buying some time and keeping the fallout aimed far from his loved ones. In typical Natsume fashion he doesn't really see how it could hurt his loved ones in other ways, but he does care. For xxxHoLic, this fic can be set anywhere before major plot points involving who Watanuki is revealed or anything happens to Yuuko. I hope you liked the fic! Please review. ^_^_


End file.
